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F.B.I. PLAN FAULTED AS RIGHTS THREAT

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation's plan to expand its crime computer to track suspects not charged with any crime poses a serious threat to constitutional rights, a panel of computer scientists says in a new report.

''The files pose a threat to the privacy and civil liberties of persons included in the files and to the civil liberties of the public in general,'' said the report by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, a group active on issues of technology and public policy.

The report, prepared at the request of Representative Don Edwards, Democrat of California, was made public Sunday. The F.B.I. plan, which has been under development since 1987, is part of a larger program to modernize the bureau's National Crime Information Center.

Mr. Edwards said the ''F.B.I. should drop the tracking proposals'' because ''they pose too many problems in terms of security, privacy and accuracy.'' Hearings Are Scheduled

Established in 1967, the National Crime Information Center has long been a focus of dispute over issues of individual privacy. It consists of a main computer at F.B.I. headquarters plus an array of telecommunications lines connecting more than 64,000 state, local and Federal law-enforcement agencies. The system includes 20 million records of wanted or missing people, stolen property and criminal histories.

The report said the tracking proposals were part of a blueprint for updating the system that was prepared for the F.B.I. by the Mitre Corporation, a systems engineering and research concern based in Bedford, Mass.

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Under this plan, the bureau would track individuals not subject to an arrest warrant but under investigation. If such a suspect arrived in New York from abroad, for example, the system would be notified when the person went through customs.

The system itself would then notify the law-enforcement agency investigating the suspect. Edwards Wants to 'Go Slow'

Mr. Edwards called the national center ''a valuable law-enforcement tool,'' adding, ''We should focus on making it better and more accurate, but it should be limited to public record information, like warrants and stolen car reports.''

He said the agency should ''go slow'' in expanding the crime information center, adding that ''the experts who wrote this report found that the F.B.I. still had not addressed the accuracy and reliability problems'' that critics say exist in the system.

''I have no comment concerning an expansion of the N.C.I.C. at this time,'' said Demery R. Bishop, an F.B.I. spokesman. He also declined to comment on the assertions that expansion of the F.B.I.'s tracking capabilities would pose a challenge to constitutional rights.

The study was prepared by three computer scientists, David D. Redell, Peter G. Neumann and James J. Horning, with Diana Gordon, a professor of political science at the City College of New York, and Janlori Goldman, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union's privacy and technology project.

A version of this article appears in print on February 14, 1989, on Page A00017 of the National edition with the headline: F.B.I. PLAN FAULTED AS RIGHTS THREAT. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe